Small Ball versus Traditional Bigs

#1
Ok, since there is much debate regarding our latest draft pick and this supposed trend around the league with teams playing smaller and focusing on 3-point shooting, I thought this would be a good place to dissect and debate the topic.

Here are my thoughts and, yes, I know some of it I have stated before:

First, it's always been popular for the masses to overreact to what appears to be a current or popular trend and believe that's the way to go. Hooray for the Warriors bucking the long-standing trend and winning with a small lineup that plays outside in. They proved everybody wrong -- or did they?

I'd argue that the only reason(s) they beat Cleveland in the Finals were due to injuries to 2 all-star players (Irving, Love) and an impactful role player in Anderson Varejao that has made the NBA's All-defensive 2nd team. As we saw, the Warriors struggled with the Cavs front line of Timofey Mosgov and Tristan Thompson (not exactly all-world talents), which helped the undermanned Cavs to eek out 2 games and nearly miss out on a couple others. The Cavs really lost the series due to lack of depth, as they couldn't sustain the level of play and their regular rotation tired out late in games. It's fairly easy and logical to conclude that, if they had 2 other more than capable front line players to rotate in and out of the lineup, the Warriors would have been in serious trouble. Then, having additional scoring options in Love and Irving likely would have put Cleveland over the top. After all, they had the best player on the floor to go along with it.

Point being, let's not get carried away with the fact that the Warriors just won a title playing the lineup and style of play that they did. Furthermore, even if you don't buy into what I outlined above, the Warriors still won largely due the defense they were able to play rather than the shooting and smallish matchup problems they created. More importantly, I believe their "style" isn't sustainable --- meaning their "style" won't win them 2, 3, 4 titles.

Historically, franchises don't typically sustain and win multiple titles without one of two things --- or both. A dominant big man or a once in a generation wing player ala Bird, Jordan, Magic, Kobe and LeBron that happens to be the best player in the league at the time. While guys like Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Derrick Rose, Paul George, etc. are all great players, they typically need circumstances to fall just right in order to have a real shot at winning a title. That's why Steve Nash, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Mitch Richmond, etc. never won one.

Sometimes a team comes along and bucks that trend, like the Warriors just did, but it's rare and not sustainable. When is the last time it happened? 2011 Dallas, 2008 Boston and 2007 Detroit are candidates, but they all had the best defensive big in the league (at the time) anchoring their defenses. And like this Warriors team, there were unique circumstances that helped them over the top.

In Detroit's case, Shaq and Kobe were going through severe internal strife that visibly affected the Lakers performance. In Dallas' case, it was year 1 for the big 3 who hadn't meshed together quite yet. Boston was an enigma in that they had a really strong starting 5 (kinda like the 2002/3 Kings that nearly, but didn't win). Regardless, of the circumstances, neither team sustained and won another title.

Duncan led teams have won 5 titles.
Shaq led teams have won 4 titles
Kobe led teams have won 2 titles
LeBron led teams have won 2 titles

Point is, the most surefire way to win hasn't changed. What has changed is that there aren't many capable bigs (let alone dominant bigs) around the league these days. But if you have one, you're better off putting your eggs in that basket than trying to follow this small ball trend. The teams that are doing it are doing so out of necessity, not because it's the better way to go.

Does anybody believe this Warriors team would have stood a chance against the 2002 Lakers team the Kings lost to in 7 games? They wouldn't have won a single game.

10 years from now, who would you bet on to have more titles -- Steph Curry or Anthony Davis? Think about it.

I think the Kings are on the right track going big. You just have to have the right bigs. Cousins may not be Shaq or Duncan, but he's closer to either than anyone else in the league right now. And, if WCS works out as Vlade and all Kings fans hope, we just added our Tyson Chandler/Ben Wallace to go along side him.

Yes, 3 point shooting is still very important even if you have a stud big. Just ask the Hakeem Olajuwon led Rockets of the mid-90's and the 2014 Duncan led Spurs. But the %'s of those shots are higher when coming from inside out rather than outside in. That is still and will always be the most efficient way to play. If I'm a GM of a team that has a dominant big, that's how I'm building my team.

That's my take on it, anyway. Feel free to disagree. :)
 
#2
My concern is that I keep hearing Vlade say Rudy is going to play at the 4 a lot. Which goes against the "going big" scenario. If that was the case, why wouldn't we take Winslow? I want the Kings to go big. WCS can RUN so it's not like we have to play grind-it-out basketball. My ideal starting 5:

DC
B-Mac
Rudy
DMC
WCS

What it sounds like it will be:

DC
B-Mac
D-Thrill
Rudy
DMC
WCS - Off the bench

I know it's fashionable to go small, like the Warriors did this year. But they have great perimeter D, and the only reason the Cavs had ANY shot is because they were CRUSHING them on the boards. If the Cavs had a semblance of health then the Cavs would have beat the small ball. We have the best of both worlds. Big men that can board and rebound, but they can also run with the best of them.
 

kingsboi

Hall of Famer
#3
I mentioned this while the playoffs were going on...everybody wants to copy whats in the "now" and that would be the Warriors small ball style of play. They built a team based around their strengths and not try to play big, although, they are capable because they have Bogut, Ezelhi and they have big forwards. That's not to say their style of play is conclusive to championships every year....they are the exception, not the norm. I'll go ahead and stick with my big bruising front court who will lead the league in rebounds before its said and done.
 
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Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
#5
I don't think that it matters to the Kings whether the Warriors were a fluke or not, except for to the extent that this tends to be a copycat league, and Ranadive has shown himself to be something of a star****er, much to my personal chagrin... The Warriors have proven a lot of doubters wrong, and demonstrated that you can win playing their style. What they haven't proven is that big boy ball can't win anymore.

If you can defend the three-point shot, you can probably win a championship with any offensive style, as long as your offense has a counter move. In a healthy Rudy Gay, the Kings have a counter-move. Time to finish shoring up that defense.
 
#6
My concern is that I keep hearing Vlade say Rudy is going to play at the 4 a lot. Which goes against the "going big" scenario. If that was the case, why wouldn't we take Winslow? I want the Kings to go big. WCS can RUN so it's not like we have to play grind-it-out basketball. My ideal starting 5:

DC
B-Mac
Rudy
DMC
WCS

What it sounds like it will be:

DC
B-Mac
D-Thrill
Rudy
DMC
WCS - Off the bench

I know it's fashionable to go small, like the Warriors did this year. But they have great perimeter D, and the only reason the Cavs had ANY shot is because they were CRUSHING them on the boards. If the Cavs had a semblance of health then the Cavs would have beat the small ball. We have the best of both worlds. Big men that can board and rebound, but they can also run with the best of them.
Another possible starting lineup...

Collison, Afflalo, Casspi, Gay, Cousins. Yes Casspi, who is very effective in Karl's style. With a lot of other possible lineups with WCS and Thompson
 

dude12

Hall of Famer
#7
How about this thought process....a big reason that Warriors won the title was the deep roster they had. And when I say deep, they had pieces that Kerr could insert that helped shut down different offenses. They had a defensive big (Bogut)that could matchup with Memphis, for the smaller lineups Green and Iguodala were able to guard multi-positions and Klay and Barnes are also good defensive players but Green and Iggy are defensive stoppers. Their offense was a key but this defensive flexibility played a huge part. Having the pieces to be able to matchup to a variety of players and teams in the half court and faster paced teams.....hugely important.

I'd say the year before SA also had that with Boris Diaw being a good flexible piece, defensive stopper in Leonard and to an extent D Green, bigs in Duncan and Splitter.

I feel as though Stein can be a guy that could be a stopper. Would be nice to add a defensive wing.
 
#8
What Vlade keeps saying in his interviews is that he wants another PG and a defensive SF. Those who keep suggesting we get another SG are completely missing this.

Vlade has also said that Karl wants to use a 2 PG lineup at times. There is a definite style they want to be able to play with. But it sounds like that 2nd PG would need to be tall. I'm thinking MCW, who I think was rumored to be on the trading block. Or Rondo (please no).

Traditional:
Collison
McLemore
Gay
WCS
DMC

Small ball lineup:
Collison
MCW
Chandler
Gay
DMC
 
K

KingMilz

Guest
#9
You need both, you have to be versatile cause against some teams going small won't work and against others going big won't. This is why I like the idea/ or am not against Rudy (or whoever else is a bigger SF or smaller PF with skills) playing PF. You can always adjust which makes you more dangerous.
 
#10
You really don't want to be a small ball team... They almost never do anything in the playoffs. Warriors just got lucky this year due to everybody they play in the playoffs have significant injuries and they themselves were full strength.

Given that we have an owner who doesn't know anything about basketball, he's just going to try to emulate the Warriors. Hopefully, Vlade stays in charge.
 
#12
Steve Kerr has said he doesn't care about small ball vs any other kind of ball you want to call it - it's all about matchups each game, even each possession. GSW with three guard rotation of 6'7' (Clay), 6'7 (Livingston) plus that "little" 6'3 MVP dude is not small - call it supremely talented instead. When Ws put Bogut in as their starting center or Ezeili to man the middle they're obviously not small - again! Only because Green 6'7" replaced 6'9 Lee at PF half way into the season was suddenly cliché "small ball Coach Kerr genius," when all the rookie coach was doing was going to his teams best strength with superb depth in getting rotations correct. Trying to fit veteran Iguodala into big new role and using youngster Barnes in matchups where he could do his best. Yes the pace might be different with smaller frontcourt players but it was not the key to success - it was all about opponent matchups and in game correct adjustments. Kerr joked (great sense of humor guy) that he did not invent small ball, didn't care about small ball but did care about one thing most - defense of which most proud Ws ended up #1 in that category.
 
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#14
Except the Warriors don't play Small. They did that to counter LeBron and maximize how much Iggy they used on him. Once they took him away (or made it tough on him at least) they forced Mozzy and TT to win the series for Cleveland. They couldn't.

Also, Andrew Bogut, there All defensive C, suddenly decided to take a vacation early and not show up. Let's not pretend that it didn't take Matthew Delly doing his Cinderella impression for 2 games and LeBron being super-human for them to even be in games that series.

That was the strength of this Warriors squad. They weren't tied into a certain way of playing. They can slow it down. They can run you into the ground. If they played us, you better believe Andrew Bogut is getting 30+ MPG. Having Draymond Green lets you do that with your lineup
 
#15
What is our greatest weakness? The deep ball. What is the league trending in? The deep ball. What do we have to our advantage? Slow, smash mouth halfcourt basketball.

Slowing the pace down in the game gives us the advantage. The Kings can reduce the number of possessions, thus lessening the advantage of a team that is a serious deep threat. Playing large also gives them a huge advantage on the glass, which translate to even fewer possessions for other teams. Why on god's green earth would they want to play small when they can dominate with potentially the best frontcourt in the league with Gay at the SF, Boogie at PF/C, and WCS at F/C? Why play AGAINST your advantages? It doesn't make any sense not to take the role similar to Memphis and pound teams into dust. Boogie and crew can get opponents in foul trouble, get into the penalty, slow the pace down and dominate.
 

Entity

Hall of Famer
#16
What Vlade keeps saying in his interviews is that he wants another PG and a defensive SF. Those who keep suggesting we get another SG are completely missing this.

Vlade has also said that Karl wants to use a 2 PG lineup at times. There is a definite style they want to be able to play with. But it sounds like that 2nd PG would need to be tall. I'm thinking MCW, who I think was rumored to be on the trading block. Or Rondo (please no).

Traditional:
Collison
McLemore
Gay
WCS
DMC

Small ball lineup:
Collison
MCW
Chandler
Gay
DMC
MCW was rookie of the year just 1 year ago now he may be going to 3rd team?
 
#18
We should care less about what basketball philosophy is superior; that is the job of the heavily experienced. The job of coaches and of GMs is to put their current players in the best position to succeed, whether or not it is smash-mouth basketball. The only time I'd accept a GM or coach to go for any philosophy is if their franchise is in a full-on rebuild. But then again, smash-mouth visions should be thrown in the trash if a franchise that wants to play smash-mouth mistakenly stumbles upon a Stephen Curry. Similarly, small-ball visions should be thrown in the trash if a franchise that wants to play small-ball mistakenly stumbles upon a Hakeem Olajuwon.
 
#20
What is our greatest weakness? The deep ball. What is the league trending in? The deep ball. What do we have to our advantage? Slow, smash mouth halfcourt basketball.

Slowing the pace down in the game gives us the advantage. The Kings can reduce the number of possessions, thus lessening the advantage of a team that is a serious deep threat. Playing large also gives them a huge advantage on the glass, which translate to even fewer possessions for other teams. Why on god's green earth would they want to play small when they can dominate with potentially the best frontcourt in the league with Gay at the SF, Boogie at PF/C, and WCS at F/C? Why play AGAINST your advantages? It doesn't make any sense not to take the role similar to Memphis and pound teams into dust. Boogie and crew can get opponents in foul trouble, get into the penalty, slow the pace down and dominate.
exactly. Its not playing to our strengths and our competitive advantage
 
#21
10 years from now, who would you bet on to have more titles -- Steph Curry or Anthony Davis? Think about it.

I think the Kings are on the right track going big. You just have to have the right bigs. Cousins may not be Shaq or Duncan, but he's closer to either than anyone else in the league right now. And, if WCS works out as Vlade and all Kings fans hope, we just added our Tyson Chandler/Ben Wallace to go along side him.

Yes, 3 point shooting is still very important even if you have a stud big. Just ask the Hakeem Olajuwon led Rockets of the mid-90's and the 2014 Duncan led Spurs. But the %'s of those shots are higher when coming from inside out rather than outside in. That is still and will always be the most efficient way to play. If I'm a GM of a team that has a dominant big, that's how I'm building my team.

That's my take on it, anyway. Feel free to disagree. :)
The league is going to go for more small-ball and it is generally the better idea (more shooting, spreads the floor and better ability to switch).

It doesn't mean centers are not valuable, it just mean their role might be different, a guy like Davis for example is the definition of a small ball big, if you plug him in at center he gives you a fast, rim protecting, switching center and as a scorer he don't do his damage at the post (and Curry having more titles is almost a lock to me- not because he is better).

If you take a look at the top 10 scorers in the league, Cousins is the lone center and althogh being an offensive beast he is only 8th in efficiency among this 10- with a little margin on supr-chucker Westbrook and fellow post-player LMA. the difference between his efficiency to the top of the league is staggering.
It is still worth it in Cousins case, but post playing- focal point of the offense bigs are less and less meaningful and unless you are an amazing player (like Cousins) teams have no need of you.

Al Jefferson for example gave 16.6 points on 50% true shooting (same as JT)- that puts him as the 281th most efficient scorer in the NBA, making him less efficient than known chuckers like Monta Ellis or former king Reke, slightly above Nik Stauskas that had a nightmare rookie year.
 
J

jdbraver

Guest
#22
The league is going to go for more small-ball and it is generally the better idea (more shooting, spreads the floor and better ability to switch).

It doesn't mean centers are not valuable, it just mean their role might be different, a guy like Davis for example is the definition of a small ball big, if you plug him in at center he gives you a fast, rim protecting, switching center and as a scorer he don't do his damage at the post (and Curry having more titles is almost a lock to me- not because he is better).

If you take a look at the top 10 scorers in the league, Cousins is the lone center and althogh being an offensive beast he is only 8th in efficiency among this 10- with a little margin on supr-chucker Westbrook and fellow post-player LMA. the difference between his efficiency to the top of the league is staggering.
It is still worth it in Cousins case, but post playing- focal point of the offense bigs are less and less meaningful and unless you are an amazing player (like Cousins) teams have no need of you.

Al Jefferson for example gave 16.6 points on 50% true shooting (same as JT)- that puts him as the 281th most efficient scorer in the NBA, making him less efficient than known chuckers like Monta Ellis or former king Reke, slightly above Nik Stauskas that had a nightmare rookie year.
Wow, Kenny Thomas was ahead of his time.
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
#23
The league is going to go for more small-ball and it is generally the better idea (more shooting, spreads the floor and better ability to switch).
This premise is flawed, for reasons I believe I outlined in Post #5. I sincerely hope that Divac and Ranadive don't fall into the trap of trying to become a cheap mimeograph of someone else's team.



It doesn't mean centers are not valuable, it just mean their role might be different, a guy like Davis for example is the definition of a small ball big, if you plug him in at center he gives you a fast, rim protecting, switching center and as a scorer he don't do his damage at the post (and Curry having more titles is almost a lock to me- not because he is better).

If you take a look at the top 10 scorers in the league, Cousins is the lone center and althogh being an offensive beast he is only 8th in efficiency among this 10- with a little margin on supr-chucker Westbrook and fellow post-player LMA. the difference between his efficiency to the top of the league is staggering.
It is still worth it in Cousins case, but post playing- focal point of the offense bigs are less and less meaningful and unless you are an amazing player (like Cousins) teams have no need of you.

Al Jefferson for example gave 16.6 points on 50% true shooting (same as JT)- that puts him as the 281th most efficient scorer in the NBA, making him less efficient than known chuckers like Monta Ellis or former king Reke, slightly above Nik Stauskas that had a nightmare rookie year.
I really, really don't like this way of thinking.

Look, DeMarcus Cousins is a unique player in the NBA. There's nobody else in the league right now like him. We need to be implementing an offensive system that plays to
his strengths, not trying to conform to what's hot in the streets right now. What other teams are doing matters to the Kings only inasmuch as we need to be able to guard against it. We don't need our offense to look like theirs.
 
#24
This premise is flawed, for reasons I believe I outlined in Post #5. I sincerely hope that Divac and Ranadive don't fall into the trap of trying to become a cheap mimeograph of someone else's team.



I really, really don't like this way of thinking.

Look, DeMarcus Cousins is a unique player in the NBA. There's nobody else in the league right now like him. We need to be implementing an offensive system that plays to
his strengths, not trying to conform to what's hot in the streets right now. What other teams are doing matters to the Kings only inasmuch as we need to be able to guard against it. We don't need our offense to look like theirs.
I don't think we are in disagreement on this, I was talking about the league in general.

We should build an offensive team around Cousins in my mind, but the league as a whole is going into a different direction and if your player isn't one-of-a-kind, which I think Cousins and perhaps Okafor are, you shouldn't try to build your offense around him.
guys like Al Jefferson, Nikola Pekovic and Brook Lopez are great players caught in a wrong time... Cousins is good enough to overcome that- but the argument in the original post was that Small-Ball wins less and that its only recency bias in play- and I completely disagree.

About the premise in my post, you can say teams shouldn't copy other team and the best strategy is to zag when everyone zig- but if you do that you better have the right tools- going against convention can produce great results, only usually it fails.
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
#25
I hear that. I don't think that you should be different, just to be different. I'm just irritated by the starry-eyed fascination with three-point shooting; a team wins a championship shooting threes, and now, everybody wants to say that you can't win without it.
 

rainmaker

Hall of Famer
#26
The whole attraction and upside to drafting WCS is to allow us to play a potentially elite defender next to Cuz. The excitement around WCS is due to his ability to guard the 3, 4 or 5. That allows us to match up defensively whether a team goes small against us or not.

In general, this small ball crap is taking on a life of its own. We're still in the West, home of numerous large PFs.

Z-Bo
Griffin
Davis
Aldridge
Dirk
Duncan
Motiejunas
Ibaka

and most teams run out legit centers next to them

Gasol
Jordan
Asik
Lopez
Chandler
Splitter/Baynes
D12
Kanter

Interestingly, those were all playoff teams aside from OKC who would have been if not for Durant going down. They will be next year.

Those are 8 of the top 9 in the West with GS being the exception, who were the top defensive team and relied on big/slow Bogut to anchor their defense all year.

Many teams go small at times, which makes sense, or there's an exception or two but by and large size in the front court still remains supreme. Exceptions around the league btw are largely due to not having the choice, not having the bigs but they'd likely prefer having them. Have a healthy Kyrie/Love and GS might not be champs and the PF/C lineup there would have been Love/TT and Mozgov. The 2nd best team in the East last year? Gasol/Taj/Noah PF/C rotation. Then we've got Miami relying on Hassan to anchor their frontline going forward, Philly stacked at center, Minn adding Okafor.

And I could go on but "small ball" or "pansy ball" really isn't becoming the blueprint some are pretending it is. It's occasional matchups where teams have the option of going big or small. Which brings me to....more Rudy at PF than SF makes no sense, especially as a plan. If for occasional spurts when Cuz is resting next to WCS or JT. That's fine. But to go into a season planning on having Rudy as more of a PF, and with our roster implying we'll also be going small at SF just makes no sense. If that's the plan, I trace it back to Karl and his inability to do anything other than what he's comfortable with. We start WCS/Cuz, start JT/Cuz and bring WCS off the bench, move JT and make getting another defensive big a priority this summer.

We were a top defensive team with a Rudy/JT/Cuz frontline under Malone. Plugging WCS in for JT is supposed to be an upgrade and bringing JT on as a 3rd big strengthens the bench. There was no part of a Ben/Rudy/Cuz or similar frontline being anywhere near as good defensively. Simply the wrong route to take as anything other than a lineup we use in spurts. A guy like Napear talks about how Cuz played the best ball of his career under Karl. A guy like Napear also ignores us regularly giving up 110, 115 points during that span.
 

bajaden

Hall of Famer
#27
Just my opinion, but I believe that the Warriors won the championship because they were the best defensive team in the NBA, along with being the best offensive team in the NBA. Tall, small, or whatever. Kudo's to Lebron for basically carrying his team on his back and almost willing them to a championship. Now, from my perspective, if the Kings win a championship, I don't care if they have five dwarfs on the floor. I just want to win. I do think that there's a bit of a misconception about Karl and small ball. If you go back and look at his history, he's played plenty of big men, and he's shown love for defensive big men in particular.

Karl is about team play, and he likes players that can handle, shoot, and most of all, have high basketball IQ. Players that can make good decisions with the ball. I don't think he cares how tall they are. So to my feeble brain, a player like Cousins should fit nicely into what Karl wants, as long as he starts to make better decisions with the ball. Or, in other words, he cuts down on the stupid turnovers. What Karl hates, is over dribbling, and forced shots. Whether he can get everyone to buy in is debatable. Personally, I'm a big fan of ball movement. I'm not against isolation plays, but if that's all you have, you become very easy to defend. Hopefully Karl and Cousins can mend the fences and come to a meeting of minds. They don't have to like each other. However, if the team starts winning, I suspect they'll get along just fine.
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#28
As I've said numerous times, if Shaq, Hakeem and Ewing were all in this draft, you'd see just how long the "smallball" trend would continue. Some of it is a response to the rules. More of it is a response to a lack of supply. In the 15 years of this millenium only 3 centers worthy of their predecessors have made it tot eh league: Dwight, Yao and Boogie. Of those Boogie is the only one with a chance to make the Top 10 at the position. So of coure if you are center starved franchises and the best thing you do is make a choice between Marcin Gortat and Jonas Valanciunas, your are thinking you can find better value at other positions.

And BTW, Cuz is very much a modern center. It would be interesting to see a smallball defense spasm and crumple its legs inward as Shaq rumbled into the middle, but the true old school centers are all guys who could be found by defenses. It actually might make them extremely effective as their mere presence would break the defense and force immediate doubles, but they would be swarmed and have a hard time getting off clean shots in the crowd of gnats. Boogie though is the 21st century great center. Maybe the GOAT ballhandling center of all time, with an outside shot to boot. He loves to get to the rim, but he doesn't have to start with his back to the basket the way a Shaq or Ewing would. hence he's built more to be able to deal with the swarm. He has options, and you have options with him.
 
#29
I'll wait until the roster is close to finalized to speculate how it will work. What WCS does bring us is options. We can go big with he and Boogie. We can go quick and athletic with WCS at C two guards, Rudy and another athletic wing. Too early to tell what the final roster will look like.
 
K

KingMilz

Guest
#30
I'd argue that the only reason(s) they beat Cleveland in the Finals were due to injuries to 2 all-star players (Irving, Love) and an impactful role player in Anderson Varejao that has made the NBA's All-defensive 2nd team.
I'd counter argue that by saying Cleveland are morons for investing in 3 of it's best 4 players huge money that are injury prone (they extended AV recently) and due to not having a bench were forced to play them a lot of mins which caused them to eventually break down (Love was unlucky but he's injured every year it seems for a decent period). A big reason why GSW were not injured/hobbled was a). Luck, b). Other than Bogut most of there guys have played the last 2-3 years injury free and are not injury prone c). they reduced everyone's playing time due to blowing teams out of the water but the Cavs even in the East started off 19-20 which meant they had to play there guys other than Lebron who took a small break basically the entire year hard to get a decent seeding.

As Mobb Deep would say "survival of the fittest only the strong survive".